@Datun - And again, honestly, what is the point? If no one knows you're male what on earth is the point of all this?
What is the point? Why do I care?
Because I'm a feminist and I believe it's worth striving for the liberation of all women; because I think we can do better, because I think it's cowardly and woefully unfair to pull the ladder up behind me just because 'I've got mine' and don't want to rock the boat, and because the policies that get made off the back of the views formed and crystallised over discussions like this have the potential to cause immense harm.
My presence in these spaces; the life I've been able to live has only existed despite and in spite of a general background societal hum of hostility towards trans people. I've absorbed it and internalised much of it too - you can't escape it. It's everywhere; it infects us and taints and corrupts us even while we experience it ourselves. It requires active, conscious effort to overcome. I'm aware of this; I acknowledge it, and try to overcome it even though my reflex is to hide; to keep my head down; to survive. Even, in the most insidious, awful way, to consider myself more 'deserving' of inclusion in female-only spaces. As if, somehow, a combination of accidents of birth and the privilege of growing up in a family who believed me when I told them about my observations make my identity more valid than anyone else's.
In a way, perhaps, this is a penance of sorts for being able to live the life that so, so, so many trans women would want to live: to be invisible. To have your transness reduced to an arbitrary datapoint in your childhood and on your medical records; just a story, long faded into history, that nobody cares about in your daily life, and indeed, wouldn't even know to care about.
So why do I care? Why do I give a shit about all those other people with slightly different experiences defined largely by the respective privileges of our upbringings?
It really is the least I could possibly do for those who haven't had the opportunities I did.
It's not like there aren't other feminists who feel the same way, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Some of them have posted in this thread. This isn't a position held by 'invading males' trying to erode protections in order to be able to abuse with impunity; it's a position held by women who are sympathetic to the struggles of other women who might not be the same as them in every way but are deserving of respect and safety. Even if they don't believe someone can actually change sex or not. Even if they don't give a shit either way. Millions of women, who use the same spaces as all of us, who invited me into those spaces as a terrified, awkward teenager, who told me really, honestly, definitely it was ok, that I was being ridiculous for being so fearful - so desperately afraid that my presence might harm anyone; those friends and relatives and even, on a few notable occasions, teachers and clinicians who outright told me not to use male facilities anymore because it was going to get me hurt or killed. Who were actively annoyed that I'd read Raymond's 'the transsexual empire' and internalised it and was so desperately full of self-loathing and fear of being seen as an invasive force that I'd rather just never leave the house again; didn't think I deserved to even live. Those women. The women who looked at themselves and at this terrified, dreadfully miserable teenager just trying to exist, and saw in her a mirror of their own struggles.
Sex is real; biology is real. Why the hell would I have transitioned if these things weren't real? If we could all just push through clinically significant distress by sheer force of will and look back and have a jolly old laugh at how silly we used to be? That might work for some people. It demonstrably does not work for others.
The oppressions inflicted on people over those factors are real, and relevant, and there are situations where the inclusion of trans people without case by case evaluation and very careful refinement and consideration of safety and fairness is inappropriate. I don't think I've ever claimed otherwise? When it comes to sport, the matter is incredibly complex; when it comes to refuges and crisis centres, likewise. If I thought my presence in a sporting event was unfair or unsafe - or, indeed, if I was told so - then I wouldn't take part. If I was told that someone at a crisis centre was somehow made uncomfortable by my presence then I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to recuse myself.
These matters require sense, nuance, honesty, respect and care. They require us to have open, honest conversations about how we define ourselves, because that is the reality in which we live.
I don't think it matters whether your philosophical beliefs agree on whether males can truly become female or not, or whether gender identity is real or not. Believe whatever you want.
Suffering is real, harm is real. Prejudice is real and causes both of these things.
So why do I care?
Because, much like those women who showed compassion and tolerance to an awkward, suffering teenager twenty years ago; who let her grow into a woman who has since shared so many of the same struggles, celebrations and life journeys while causing harm to precisely nobody over all these years, I want to help. To reach a hand out, in kindness and compassion, and help pass that gesture forward to others who need it.
It was easy for them. I already looked just like their sisters; like their daughters. They didn't even really have to try, and within a year or so, nobody even noticed.
It's not always that easy. But that doesn't mean we can't try.
I don't think we should let men into same-sex spaces. I wouldn't want that - I'd hate that. Find it hugely uncomfortable, dangerous and counter-intuitive.
I do think we should be compassionate human beings, and be both practical and respectful in our definitions. That's not #bekind; that's common human decency.
I don't think the above statements are mutually exclusive.